Life with the Rogers
My life in the tundra with 3 dogs and a manArchive for dogs
Chocolate Mint or Decomp
My brother-in-law’s dog, Buddy, will come home after rolling in a dead animal found somewhere in the great outdoors. Last night I experienced it with Harper.
We went down to my parent’s house where they have a large fenced in backyard in which Harper gets to run and romp and play in all day. There is even a wooded section at the back edge for him to sniff dried leaves and roots and, I suppose, decomposing squirrels.
Josh first found out that there was something foul on Harper’s neck when he was playing with him right before we left for my aunt and uncle’s house for dinner, so we didn’t have time to give him a bath then and we just shut him up in the sun porch for the time being.
Well, as usual, we stayed for a long time at my aunt and uncle’s house and it was 11 when we got back to my parent’s. My mom took my grandmother back to her house so Josh and I were left alone to get the puppy clean before we headed back home ourselves.
So Josh heads outside to start spraying Harper down while I went to look for some cheap shampoo for the dog. From now on, I’m leaving some dog shampoo there just for these occasions. Josh was yelling from outside for me to hurry up, as the dog was getting wet and slippery. I looked in both bathrooms and all I could find was conditioner! I finally found some old stuff that I knew Kristin wouldn’t care if I used…bubble bath. Hey, it has soap in it!
I hurried back downstairs and tried to squeeze some of the stuff on the dog but it had the industrial grade seal on the bottle and it took me a long time to get it broken. Meanwhile, Harper is trying to run away and Josh is trying to hold him, the hose, and not get too wet. I finally got the seal off and promptly squeezed into Josh’s hand half of the bottle.
Not even noticing this at the time, I just turned around and ran back inside to get some old towels. Josh yelled after me, “What’s this smell??” I called back behind me,
“Chocolate mint!”
He must have made some comment, but I was too busy getting towels. When I got back outside, I was accosted with the smell of chocolate mint bubble bath. No wonder Kristin hadn’t wanted to use it. Some strange person gave it to her and she kept it all these years as a back up white elephant gift. It is the WORST smell imaginable to come out of a bath and beauty product.
The chaos continued, me holding on to Harper’s front paw so that he couldn’t run away as Josh continued to lather and rinse both horrific smells from his fur. We got him inside just as everyone was returning to the house with Harper running around the downstairs slipping on the linoleum floor, Kristin explaining why she had that awful stuff in the house, my dad wondering what dead animal could be out in his backyard, Josh wrinkling up his nose every time the dog got near him, and me loudly explaining the whole situation. My poor mom was bombarded with all of this when she walked in.
The whole way home we couldn’t decide if we would rather have Harper smell like dead squirrels or chocolate mint bubble bath.
I Found My Camera!!
Yah! So now I will bombard you with pictures of our Sweet Boy. Some of these pictures were taken a while ago, and some only a couple months. (I still don’t have that new battery for the camera…Christmas Present Idea! [Lithium battery for a Nikon Coolpix 2100, please])
I just had a realization about something…all these pictures of Harper I’m taking…what will it be like when I have babies to capture in the digital media? Scary thought Although, the world might be more interested in a photograph of my child than my beagle. Ah, well. I give what I have to give…don’t get any ideas, ladies.
I don’t know if any of you out there have a dog, but let me just tell you how much we love this little guy. Alot of people told us that Beagles are the WORST dog for apartment life because they howl all day long. Well let me put that myth to rest. This little critter did not make nary a SOUND for the first four months that he lived with us. I’m not kidding! We thought we got a disabled pet. Some breeder…sells us a mute dog. When he finally did test his vocal chords, he did it initially to warn us that a strange looking person was coming down the outside steps to our apartment. Then it was the occasional ‘huramph’, the test, if you will, to make sure that sound could still escape that mouth. Now, he barks and howls (short little funny howls where he looks exactly like Snoopy with his snout up in the air) only when Josh or I really get him going. Racing around the house, tackling him and rubbing his stomach, those sorts of things. He might let out an occasional whimper here and there, especially if we are not being attentive enough to realize that his bathroom break has arrived, but other than that- not a peep. And you wonder why we call him Sweet Boy. The dog that defies his breed characteristics.
This picture is of him when we barely knew eachother. I think it was his second or third night. I put a cozy blanket in his cage and apparently he didn’t want it there. He hadn’t even seen it before, but it was love at first sight for this little guy. He whimpered and sniffed and whined and won. He got his blanket. I had to trick him out of the room just to be able to put it into his cage before I left each morning. I still do. The blanket has survived, with a few new holes.
Snoopy
Ahh…the puppy. I figured since I mentioned him already, I’d have to include a picture of Harper to introduce him to those of you that haven’t met our ‘Sweet Boy’. This picture is pretty old, it was taken right after we got him last New Year’s. I really need to stop procrastinating and pick up that new battery for my digital camera!
One of Harper’s favorite activities is to run like a crazy dog around and around our apartment. When we moved, he dodged all the moving boxes without breaking speed or his neck, for that matter. All you hear is a lot of heavy panting and the occasional *thump* as he lands on the floor after flying up onto our bed, followed by an immediate collapse if we say to him, “settle”. At least he listens to some commands.
He really is our sweet boy, though. He hangs his head when he knows that he did something wrong, like dismantling my bed and eating a corner of the bedspread while I was away at work. Or, my favorite, eating a ball point pen when I was taking a nap and spreading blue ink EVERYWHERE just two weeks before we were scheduled to move out of the apartment.
hmm.
I know I started out by saying he was a sweet boy. And he is, if not a little mischievous…
ah, dogs.
Yesterday I was a dog. Today I am a dog. Tomorrow I will probably still be a dog. Sigh. There’s so little hope for advancement.
-Snoopy
